From Baghdad to Baghdad
by Jake
Summary: Upgrading for the new millennium. This is the second story in the "Official Sponsor" series.
1. Default Chapter

Title:From Baghdad To Baghdad  
  
Rating:R for violence, death, sex, language.  
  
SPOILERS:THE GEM OF AMARA  
  
BtVS4.03"The Harsh Light of Day"  
  
BtVS5.02"Real Me"  
  
AtS3.01"Heartthrob"  
  
Disclaimer:All characters and places from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and ANGEL are the properties of Joss Whedon and his Wacky Pals (tm).  
  
Notes:This is the second story in the "Official Sponsor" series.  
  
*************************************  
  
August 2000  
  
"Being a vampire sucks!"  
  
Henry Baker wasn't crying like his sire was when *she* said it but his feelings were similar. He was one of her first minions, and, as expected, not her most valued.  
  
Bad enough that he'd been bullied through most of elementary and high school for being a "nerd". Bad enough that he had to spend his senior year in a bunch of trailers because the Class of '99 and the demon mayor destroyed the high school. Now he had stupidly allowed his hormones to get the best of him.  
  
They led him to believe that the lovely blonde who'd always looked right through him in high school suddenly found him attractive. She lured him from the Bronze to the alley, and he froze when he saw her demon face. The next thing he knew, he woke up in Harmony Kendall's cave lair and he was in her thrall . . . sort of.  
  
Henry's goal to leave Sunnydale for an East Coast college in September was now dead. He'd loved books and learning almost all his life, and having his soul ripped away didn't entirely kill those feelings. But now he felt a new and unholy attraction for Sunnydale and he felt an unreasonable obligation to Harmony. Small but not utterly ignorable. He could abandon her if he really wanted to; he just didn't have a good enough reason to be somewhere else yet.  
  
So while Harm and her more valued minion went on another hunt, his job was to clean up the lair. He found the dusty necklace where it had fallen, behind the dresser with the big mirror. [And why does Her Ditziness have a flippin' mirror in here anyway?]  
  
He picked up the necklace and was surprised by its weight. [Real gold?! And this jewel doesn't look like some cheap imitation.] And he was surprised that he suddenly felt free again. His old hatred for Sunnydale and his new hatred for Harmony Kendall flooded into him like twin rivers. He wondered why he had felt so obliged to remain and do her bidding. He was still holding the necklace and wiping off the dust when he walked in front of the mirror and saw his reflection.  
  
He dropped the necklace in surprise and his reflection immediately vanished. He picked it up again and his reflection returned, along with the will to get gone. For a second, he thought he was human again but he tried his demon face, and marveled that he could see himself as a vampire in a mirror. He placed the necklace around his neck, hid it inside his shirt and left the lair. Well, there was some vandalism before he left. Actually, a lot of vandalism. Harmony would not be pleased, no matter how successful her hunt, but it wasn't like she knew where he lived. [Hell, she can't even remember my name.]  
  
Henry had been living in the garage since Nana came to live with them in the small house two weeks after he graduated. What had once been just one more reason to leave Sunnydale without looking back was now a blessing in disguise. He didn't need an invitation to enter his own SRO dwelling and since he'd only been missing two days, it hadn't been cleaned out by his parents. He still hadn't tasted fresh human blood yet, just the leftovers after Harmony and the other one almost drained them. After drinking a stray cat on the way home, he gathered up his most durable clothes and his hidden cash stash and placed them all into his knapsack.  
  
He thought briefly of going up to the house, getting invited in and feeding off his family but he realized that her remaining minion probably did remember his name and could track him down if he stayed.   
  
He picked up his sack and a tarp from the garage corner and walked toward the city limits.  
  
The tarp kept the sun off as he slept through the day in the desert with his knapsack and most of his body buried under rocks and sand. He was going East as he'd long planned, college or no college.  
  
He woke up to find the wind had still managed to blow the stone-weighted tarp partially aside and his naked left hand was basking in the setting sun. It wasn't burning. He slowly pushed back more of the tarp and stood up to watch the sunset.  
  
Now he did cry a little . . . because being a vampire didn't suck anymore.  
  
****************  
  
The big man was almost staggering drunk. Still, he knew his way home. As he moved down the normally well-lit alley, he noticed that two of the street lamps were out. [Damn city maintenance crew! Don't they get paid enough?] The man just got paid himself. Which meant payday for someone else as well.  
  
Henry dropped five stories to land six feet behind the prey with a solid *thud*. Ordinarily that'd sting for a few seconds but the Gem of Amara removed the sting immediately. He grabbed the drunk around his mouth and his waist and pulled him into the darkness. As always, he was quick and deadly, biting into the drunk's carotid artery and drinking long and deep.  
  
Henry discovered during his time in Las Vegas that the only Gem "drawback" was he couldn't get high anymore. He didn't care about drugs, but he missed being able to get a good beer buzz going. Still, that meant he was invulnerable to another form of attack. As a vampire, he was already immune to microbiological attack. The Gem made him immune to all forms of chemical attack, including subtle ones like tranquilizers.  
  
So the vampire, still stone sober after drinking the high-alcohol-content blood, rifled the corpse's pockets and quickly found the wallet. The prey had a nice assortment of credit cards. He ignored them and removed the cash. Four hundred dollars and change; not too shabby considering the man had already deposited most of his pay in the bank.  
  
Henry pulled out a clean folded handkerchief and opened it to remove the glass shard he'd put inside. He carefully put the shard on the ground and used the handkerchief to wipe away his fingerprints from the wallet before replacing it to the pocket. He admired the man's ring but he didn't touch it, just like he hadn't touched the credit cards.  
  
For a vampire, mugging was the perfect crime. It was like getting paid to eat dinner. All you had to do was be smart about it: don't use the credit cards; don't fence the jewelry. Even if Henry struck out in the cash department, he still got to feed. A vampire didn't need a weapon, being stronger than humans twice his size. And if he fed first, he didn't waste time dealing with the victim's protestations.  
  
Henry picked up the shard and made practiced cuts to obliterate the fang wounds. He placed the shard in the handkerchief, wiped it to remove fingerprints, then broke it and scattered the pieces on the body. He took out his small can of lighter fluid and carefully doused the body, especially the hair, shirt collar and the neck wounds. He used his Bic lighter to set fire to the handkerchief and he placed the burning cloth on the body.  
  
He then jumped straight up and grabbed the window ledge twelve feet above the ground. His climb back up to the rooftop was much faster than any human expert climber could have done. No fuss, no muss.  
  
By now, every LVPD precinct had at least one of Henry's victims. The citywide task force was stymied, and they were feeling the heat from the public. [CSI, my ass!] He laughed, not for the first time.  
  
Henry made it back to the dingy motel room he'd rented since he first walked into Las Vegas. It was cheap and far off the Strip, two advantages not to be underestimated. He pulled up the floor board to add half of tonight's take to his cash stash, keeping the rest for shopping. He was running low on beef blood in the minifridge, and he was also running low on Worcestershire and barbecue sauces. Animal blood provided basic sustenance, but there was no substitute for human blood when it came to taste and maximum power. The sauces went a long way in making his mostly beef blood diet bearable.  
  
He couldn't go out and mug every night. There had to be planning and observation for the best victims, and there had to be timing. And he had to replace his mugging clothes regularly because his supernatural style of attack and escape put them through maximum wear and tear quickly.  
  
It was also time to go looking for a Kevlar vest; he had more than enough cash by now to get a great model. The Gem made him invulnerable but it couldn't make itself invulnerable. A lucky gunshot would destroy his treasure, and him as well if it happened in daylight or other lethal circumstances.  
  
Before he got to the outskirts of Las Vegas, Henry had learned a lot about the Gem of Amara. His desert experiments had taught him that, with the Gem, his Bic lighter couldn't burn him; crosses drawn in the sand and made of twigs and twine had no effect on him; a scratch from one of those twigs healed instantly; a deep pocket-knife cut to his arm healed with the same speed; jackrabbit blood tasted better and sweeter with the Gem than without it.  
  
He boldly discovered that prying the chain loose from the pendant didn't affect the power of the Gem. The power was almost certainly in the jewel alone, but he didn't know for sure. Since separating the jewel from the gold setting might destroy the power, he had no intention of doing so. However the solid gold chain could be sold. It was now with the cash stash under the floor board.  
  
In the desert, he slitted and pulled back the skin of his belly, placed the Gem inside the wound, and watched as it rapidly healed over and left an unsightly but unscarred bulge. It didn't show under his loose shirt and it didn't feel uncomfortable at all. His first week in Las Vegas, after he'd researched some anatomy in the public library, he used his pocket knife again, to relocate the Gem to where the medial segment of his right middle lung lobe used to be.  
  
****************  
  
Invincibility. Most vampires were cocky enough without true invincibility. He knew that cockiness could still get him killed. There wasn't a vampire in the world that wouldn't happily dismember him for his treasure. For that matter, so would any other demon and probably almost any human being. The jewel and gold were very valuable even without the enchantment; with it, the Gem was priceless.  
  
The one thing he didn't know about and was in no position to test was decapitation. There are destructive tests and there are nondestructive tests. It doesn't get more destructive than beheading. Even if he survived --by no means a sure thing-- he couldn't know that he could piece himself back together.  
  
"When in doubt, assume the worst-case scenario" was one good piece of advice his old man gave him. Henry figured the Gem was good for every weakness he tested for and none he hadn't tested yet. That left beheading as the biggie to be avoided at all costs.  
  
He used to be a HIGHLANDER fan and now he pondered on fictional immortals who could only be killed by decapitation. He considered getting a new name. The old one didn't fit his new destiny.  
  
After six months of feeding on Sin City, Henry Baker "died" in a dingy motel room and a new man boarded an eastbound 767 with new luggage containing a deluxe Kevlar vest packed among a new wardrobe, $32K in travelers' checks, and the best fake ID money could buy in Las Vegas. For the first time in his life and unlife, "Allan Newman" flew first class. He settled in Baltimore to plan the next stage of his life.  
  
TBC 


	2. Baltimore

Disclaimer in Part 1  
  
****************  
  
He hadn't met a vampire since leaving Sunnydale. Which was good before, but now he went in search of them. There had to be vamps on the East Coast; they couldn't all have migrated to Southern California. Could they?  
  
He hung out at night in a rough neighborhood. That's where he met Holly. He saw what she was before she saw what he was. She was going to ignore him until he smiled at her.  
  
"Hi, stud," she said with a practiced smile. She looked old enough to be his mother, but there was still an attractiveness to her. She was clean and petite and thin. But no mistaking her for anything other than a hooker . . . unless you also had vampire radar.  
  
[Almost too thin; anorexic? Something else. . . .] "Hi, yourself." He smiled back. He waited for the moment of recognition in her eyes and he winked at her surprise when he saw it. [Not age lines in her face . . . just worn out, the lady is.] He could smell the animal blood in her. She hadn't had human in a long time.  
  
"Wow! I haven't seen another one of us in a long time. . . . Are you looking for pleasure tonight?"  
  
"Yeah . . . and maybe to talk with somebody who doesn't ring my dinnerbell."  
  
She giggled in a charmingly girlish manner. "Sure. I can't do it for free, though."  
  
He got close and whispered in her ear, "No prob. Fresh human at my place. That good enough?"  
  
Her big eyes got even bigger. "Okay!"  
  
She didn't quite believe a young guy like Allan wanted her. Sure, he was no Hollywood stud but still his wardrobe and confidence indicated he could afford a better class of hooker. But he was a vampire and he wanted to talk as well as screw. Birds of a feather and all.  
  
"Have a seat," after he unlocked his door and flipped on the lights.  
  
She headed for the bed and sat on the edge. "Nice place", she lied. Sure, it was bigger than hers but not as neat. Nor as nicely furnished. But she'd bet he also wasn't looking at eviction in a month.  
  
He grunted in acknowledge as he took four blood packs out of the frig and placed them in the microwave oven. One minute later: "Ninety-nine degrees, just like the doctor ordered." He grinned as he offered two packs to her. There was that lovely giggle again. He could get used to that.  
  
"This is wonderful! How did you . . . ?"  
  
"I bribe a Red Cross nurse to give me half their just-expired blood packs that normally would be destroyed or donated to research facilities. He's got money issues, I got blood issues. We scratch each other's back."  
  
She nodded and drained her two packs almost before he'd finished one. He took one sip out of his second pack, looked slyly at her, then gave her the last of his human supply. She accepted gratefully.  
  
"You're so nice! I didn't expect anything like this."  
  
"I like to surprise people." She smiled in return and started to unbutton her blouse. "Not yet. You need to rest first."  
  
"I do?"  
  
"Yeah . . . it's been a long time since you've had a real meal. I can tell. Why don't you get some rest while I go hunt?"  
  
"Okay . . . it's your dime, so to speak." She took off her shoes and curled up on the bed. He turned out the light as he left. He came back and put the purchased beef blood in the frig. She woke up, yawned and stretched like a cat.  
  
"Back already? No luck with the hunt?" She half expected to see him bringing in somebody bound and gagged and slung over his shoulder.  
  
"No. . . . I'll try again tomorrow," he lied. He hadn't hunted since Nevada. He wasn't sure he wanted to get back into that routine . . . not with a new dream percolating in his head. But he looked at her and he wasn't thinking about hunting.  
  
The recuperative powers of a belly full of human blood on a malnourished vampire were astounding to see, even for the owner of the Gem of Amara. In just three hours, Holly looked as good as she did when she was last seen as an attractive woman with a pulse.  
  
They grabbed each other, and didn't stop until well after sunrise. Naturally she spent the day, they slept together, with another wild sex session in the early afternoon before sleeping again until sunset.  
  
"My goodness! I didn't expect anything like this when I saw you the other night." He leered and tickled her. She laughed and beat him with a pillow. For the first night in a long time, she wasn't standing on a grimy street corner waiting for some horny, disgusting human to pick her up.  
  
Finally, they talked.  
  
It turned out Holly was only old enough to be his baby-sitter in "life years". She was born 22 years before him but she had been a vampire for the last 14, so her human age was only 8 years more than his. She couldn't believe he was really only 19; he acted like somebody who had been a vampire a lot longer.  
  
She was a little disappointed when they had beef blood that night but once she discovered the almost magical powers of teriyaki and Worcestershire sauce, she was satisfied.  
  
"I . . . haven't been a vampire for long and I don't know a lot about us . . . beyond the basic stuff. Got any pointers?"  
  
"I'd suggest not drawing attention to yourself, but you seem to be on top of that one. Except maybe that Red Cross nurse. Does he know why you want the blood?"  
  
"I told him I work for a private research lab that doesn't have the proper permits. That's all he needs to know."  
  
"Okay. Maybe if you told me what you were looking for, I could give you a better answer."  
  
"You ever hear anything about . . . tougher vampires? You know, like maybe they don't burn in daylight?"  
  
She smiled indulgently. "Ohh, you want fairytales. No, wait. There's one fairytale and there's the cure."  
  
"Cure!? Tell me everything."  
  
"The name is a bad joke. To be honest, the 'cure' is suicidal. First you have to find a slog demon. There's some in NYC and I heard there's a few in Los Angeles. Not that many in North America . . . they're more popular in Europe, I've been told.  
  
"See, these slog demons are organ collectors . . . rare organ collectors. They creep me out . . . they're like ghouls. Anyway, they're almost always some sort of doctor, because of the collection thing.  
  
"They're crazy for vampire hearts. You go to Doctor Sloggie, and he removes your heart, puts some magic dust in the empty space, and for the next six hours you're 'cured'. Nothing can kill you. The doctor keeps your heart as his fee. Brrrrrrr!" She actually shivered.  
  
"And at the end of the six hours, you die?"  
  
"Yes. That's the suicidal part. A vampire has to be totally desperate to want to be unkillable for only the last six hours of his existence."  
  
"Hmm. . . . Tell me about the fairytale."  
  
She giggled. "The Unholy Grail. Some one-of-a-kind magic charm that makes a vampire unkillable. No catch involved that I heard about. A real pipedream."  
  
"What does it look like?"  
  
"Don't tell me you believe in that thing! . . . Okay, it's some kind of jewelry. A ring, a bracelet, I don't know. It's called the Jewel of Omar . . . I think. So there's a jewel involved."  
  
[The Jewel of Omar. Emerald set in gold.] "Interesting. . . . How did you hear about it?"  
  
"My sire. The same guy who told me about the so-called cure."  
  
"So how did you get turned?"  
  
"You're lucky I like you, Mr. Nosey. Most guys only want to talk about themselves."  
  
"I'm not that interesting."  
  
"'He lied.'" She smiled. "Okay, okay. . . . I was a callgirl, a great one. Then one day, one of my customers went demon-face after we had sex and he vamped me. Turns out he was a pimp who wanted me to work for him. To drive the point home, he killed my human pimp.  
  
"That was in Chicago. We left town. For more than a decade, I was a callgirl in New Orleans, strictly for rich demons. Then one day my pimp didn't come home. My last customer told me there was a sweep of demon hunters through town and they caught him. He had all the client connections and I couldn't make it as a freelancer. So I came here . . . I was born here.  
  
"A callgirl for humans has to be warm-blooded. The customers are pretty insistent on things like that. That's when I became a streetwalker. That low-life clientele isn't as choosy, if you let them get kinky. I haven't had human blood since New Orleans, when my pimp brought home prey from his hunts. Not until last night."  
  
"Happy I could share. So you never hunted?"  
  
"No. I didn't have to, before. Now I can't afford to. Streetwalkers get hassled enough; the last thing I need is some police investigation into a missing person or a dead body that I'm actually guilty for."  
  
"I take it you haven't had a real good run at streetwalking. Why not quit?"  
  
"And do what? I've been a hooker since I was 18. I'm very good at it, better than most callgirls and better than any other streetwalker. I used to work in one of the Nevadan brothels, all nice and legal. Then I got stupid and went home to Chicago; wound up working for a pimp with little more class than the gorillas that pimp most street whores. I'm glad I got vamped for that reason alone.  
  
"But until you fed me, I was in a steady downward spiral. Guess I'm not real great at taking care of myself." She looked down at her lap, then up into his eyes. "I can be your full-time girl . . . if you want."  
  
"I want." Allan had made a point of visiting one of the Nevadan brothels before he flew East because he didn't want virginity to be a part of his new life. He wondered if it was the same one Holly worked in but he decided against asking her. She was going to be his first girlfriend.  
  
She grinned hugely. "Okay!"  
  
"C'mere, pretty lady." They cuddled and kissed. Then, just when she thought they were going to screw again, "Tell me where to find a slog demon in New York."  
  
She was horrified. "NO! Why??"  
  
"Relax, baby, I just want to talk to him. Maybe I'll bring him back for dinner since he upsets you so much."  
  
"Yuck! They may look human but I can't imagine they actually taste human. They're called *slog* demons for a reason, lover."  
  
"Just kidding. But I really want to know more about this cure . . . why it's only temporary."  
  
"It sounds dangerous. He's not just gonna tell you a trade secret."  
  
"I can be very persuasive."  
  
"Allan, please! Can't this wait for a while? You're not getting any older and I don't like thinking about what could happen if you go messing in slog demon business. Can't we just be together for a while?"  
  
He relented. "Sure, baby. I didn't mean to scare you. . . . Hard to believe we're the only two here in Baltimore, huh?"  
  
"Yeah . . . most East Coast vamps are either in New York City or Miami."  
  
"Miami for a vampire? Now that's living dangerously." They laughed.  
  
****************  
  
A month later, Allan found himself in New York City. Holly didn't know any more about the slog demon than she'd already told him, but she did give him the name of a demon bar her last pimp told her about. He got friendly with some of the other customers as well as with the bartenders, buying rounds and tipping generously.  
  
"I'm looking for a slog demon."  
  
"The best one in Manhattan works at the Cabrini Medical Center. Name's Kellerson."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
TBC 


	3. Past the Point of No Return

Disclaimer in Part 1  
  
****************  
  
"Doctor, Mr. Bakley is here for his consultation."  
  
"Thanks, Betty. Send him in." Allan walked into the doctor's office. "Mr. Bakley, please have a seat."  
  
He ignored the doctor's offer, walked right behind the desk and invaded the seated demon's personal space to sniff. [Looks human, doesn't smell human.] Allan was satisfied.  
  
"I *beg* your pard--"  
  
"Sorry, Doc, very sorry. I had to be sure you were what I was told you were." Allan sat down.  
  
The doc had a realization of his own. "You're . . . a vampire?"  
  
"Guilty. . . . Anyways, I'm here about the cure."  
  
"You want the vampire cure."  
  
"I'd like to know more about it first."  
  
"Well, the procedure is quick, irreversible, and infallible. For the next six hours after it's done, nothing in the world can hurt you. Alas, then the cure itself kills you, but painlessly. You just quietly go to dust."  
  
"How much does it cost?"  
  
"No cost to you. I salvage your heart, but you won't need it anyway."  
  
"Is it removal of the heart that kills me?"  
  
"Mr. Bakley, the cure won't work with your heart still inside you."  
  
"Hmm. . . . What about beheading?"  
  
"Decapitation won't kill you. In fact you can be dismembered and each separate part of your body will continue to live, and to obey commands from your brain, even if your brain itself is divided."  
  
"It sounds so fantastic."  
  
"We are talking about a mystical procedure here, Mr. Bakley, not the common butchery you'd find in any human operating room. . . . Any more questions?"  
  
"Just one. What do you do with the heart?"  
  
The demon smiled. "Sorry, that's a trade secret. Now I've patiently answered all of your questions. Do you want the cure or not?"  
  
"I want to buy the recipe for the cure."  
  
"You can't be serious."  
  
"I got $20,000 on me that says I am."  
  
"I'm sorry, Mr. Bakley, but some things aren't for sale at any price. Any monetary price, that is."  
  
"Okay. . . . I understand. Thanks for your time, Doc." Allan stood up, pulled the illegally purchased 9mm pistol from his rear waistband, put four bullets in the demon's head, walked out and shot the screaming nurse and the other waiting patient. He locked the waiting room door, went back to the office, and pulled on latex gloves from the box there. Then he took paper towels soaked with alcohol and wiped down every object he'd touched since entering the office. He heard the commotion in the outside hallway and he heard distant sirens.  
  
[Time's running out.] He grabbed the old red-trimmed black books on the shelf behind the slumped body and opened them. As he expected, they were in a language he never saw before. He knew the cure wouldn't be written down in any human language, and even though the doctor probably had the books memorized, he was vain enough to display them among his human medical texts in his office.  
  
He stuffed the three books into the leather shoulder bag under his coat, covered his head with a towel, put on his demon face, and jumped right through the ceiling air vent into the crawl space. He burst through the floor into the room above just before the cops broke down Dr. Kellerson's waiting room door. The upper room was dark.  
  
Allan removed the towel, rinsed his face, and brushed off the dust and debris from his clothes. Then he ran to the window, opened it and looked down. Nine stories down to the ground, where there were two parked police cruisers with lights flashing and a third pulling into the entrance area. The cops in the office below saw the escape route the killer made and they were maneuvering the doctor's desk into position for one of them to climb up.  
  
Allan timed his jump from the open window perfectly. He landed on the third cruiser just as it pulled to a stop near the building entrance. His boots caved in the car roof, instantly killing the occupants. By the time the cops inside the medical center got back down to the entrance, Allan was looking perfectly normal standing in Union Square Subway Station, headed to Grand Central Station for a train home.  
  
****************  
  
He'd actually been in NYC a week before he made his appointment to see the slog demon. It was a perfect research opportunity and he wasn't going to waste it. Between the demon bar and the rare books collection in the public library, he got some amazing information, including the name of the Gem of Amara. Allan still had no idea how Harmony Kendall ended up with it, much less her not knowing what it was, but that was a mystery that by now had lost interest to him. Harmony was a complete ditz. Who better to have a priceless treasure right under her nose and not realize it?  
  
He also heard a mention that the procedure for the vampire 'cure' was written in demon books, which is how Allan knew he scored as soon as he entered Kellerson's office.  
  
Of course the gun was wiped and sent down a storm drain before Allan left the Big Apple.  
  
****************  
  
Holly had turned into a real hausfrau in his absence. He phoned her that he was coming home and she set out candles in holders on white linen, a pie she baked herself and some new Asian meat sauce she wanted him to try. He'd left about six packs of human blood in the frig before he left but he wasn't surprised that she'd ate them all and they had beef blood for dinner. She kept him sexually gratified in every way he asked and he indulged her whims. He wasn't real crazy about the feminization of his apartment but what the hell. It made Holly happy and he had more important things to think about than interior decorating. The thought of going back to the lifestyle of a lonely bachelor didn't appeal to him much.  
  
****************  
  
"I can't believe you did this! What if somebody tracks them here?"  
  
"Relax, babe, they're just books. Medical books. Just like recipes or spell books, not homing devices." They'd finished dinner and homecoming sex. Then he showed her his prizes; he was expecting praise, not reproach.  
  
"You don't know that! You can't read them; neither can I!" The petite vampire was angry and scared.  
  
"They hold the key . . . what I've been looking for."  
  
"Well that's great for you! You're not the one who's going to get dusted right off!"  
  
"Wha . . . what do you mean?"  
  
Silently she went and got a stake from her closet space. She put it in the bed between them. He was speechless.  
  
"I know you don't trust me. I think you care about me but maybe you don't. But I care about you! I've told you I don't know how many different ways that I love you--"  
  
"I love you too," he said hastily.  
  
"Maybe. Or maybe you only think you love me. But you don't trust me, Allan, and that's not real love."  
  
"Look, Holly--"  
  
"Please! Let me finish. I've been thinking about this for a while now . . . I've got to say this before it's too late. . . . Allan, I know your secret. I've known about your reflection for weeks now. I'm not stupid."  
  
"I know," he whispered.  
  
"Yes but maybe you were hoping I'm blind. Sorry, lover, too many shiny objects in this apartment. When I first saw your reflection, I didn't know what to say . . . I figured you'd tell me in good time, but it's clear you had no intention of telling me. And before I saw your reflection, I saw you heal. It was our second night together. You were sleeping, I playfully bit you . . . too hard, broke the skin. I was sure you'd wake up but you didn't. Then when I looked to see the damage I'd done, it was gone . . . like magic. Not a mark at all. I scratched myself on the arm; it took half a day to heal. I gave you the same scratch, it didn't last two seconds.  
  
"I tried to ignore the superhealing as a fluke, but not combined with the reflection. You've got it, somewhere inside of you. You've got the Jewel of Omar." She had a look of satisfaction mixed with fear.  
  
"I knew you were as smart as you are beautiful. You're my precious baby. . . . It's called the Gem of Amara, according to what I learned in New York."  
  
"Okay. . . . Allan, you can trust me! Whatever you're planning, you can't do it alone. If you won't trust me, who will you trust? I can help whatever it is, if you'll let me. . . . Otherwise, stake me right now and get it over with."  
  
"I want to duplicate it," he said in a low voice.  
  
"I knew it! Why else would you care about the frickin' cure if you've got the fairytale? This is so incredible! You want to make more Gems." Finally she was smiling again.  
  
"Yeah, and better ones . . . if I can."  
  
"What 'better ones'?"  
  
"The Gem has a weakness. I'll show you." He got up, found his old pocket knife and brought it back to their bed. "Don't get panicky on me now." He cut off his left little finger with a grunt as she covered her mouth to stifle a gasp. The hand injury healed immediately but the finger just lay there on the sheet, staining the sheet with blood. He stared at it, glared at it, finally grunted "Move!" The finger didn't obey. Not a twitch. Then, just as it started to turn gray in color, he put the empty space on his hand next to the finger cut and the two merged together. The finger returned to its normal color. Even the blood stain on the sheet was gone . . . reabsorbed. He held up his hand and wiggled his little finger. He'd never seen her eyes look bigger than they did now.  
  
"That is in-freaking-credible!"  
  
"In a way. But if I don't do the merge in time, the finger goes to dust. I have to grow a new one. I found that out the hard way in New York. . . . The thing is, baby, if I can't control a severed finger, I have no way of surviving decapitation. The Gem is good for everything except beheading. The doc said the cure is better. I don't know for sure.  
  
"The Gem is permanent but unique. The cure is reproducible but temporary. If I . . ." He grabbed her hands. "If *we* can figure out how to combine the two, then vampires won't be low demons on the totem pole anymore. We'll be top demons. This world will be ours."  
  
"You'll be a god. You'll be the Vampire Messiah. What am I saying? . . . You *are* a god, now. But you can only get better." She was ecstatic. "We have to figure out how to make this work!"  
  
He pushed the stake and the knife out of their bed, and she jumped him, kissing, licking, nibbling. She was giddy. "I live with a god. I sleep with a god. I never felt so special before."  
  
"You'll always be special to me, precious."  
  
Talking her into moving was easy. Her family moved from Baltimore when she was seven, but her happy memories of early childhood were now mixed with bitter adult experiences in Charm City. She'd go wherever he went. Allan was surprised to find himself going back to California. But very happy it wouldn't be anywhere near Sunnydale.  
  
They drove across the country at night, and Allan taught Holly how to hunt efficiently. Rest stops can be smorgasbords for traveling vampires.  
  
They arrived an hour before dawn and moved into a motel just inside the city limits of San Francisco.  
  
FIN 


End file.
